Case study · Multi-franchise group

A Midlands group, rebuilt for buyers who reserve online.

Sandicliffe has sold and serviced cars in the East Midlands since 1948. Their Autonomy site brings every franchise, used car and van into one place, and lets buyers reserve a car before they visit.

Visit sandicliffe.co.uk Book a demo

Founded: 1948
Manufacturer brands: 7
Locations: 5
Weeks to launch: 12

The Sandicliffe homepage, with a new and used car search and the franchise brands below

A used Mazda CX-80 vehicle page on a phone, with the photo gallery, video and finance buttons and the model details

The client

From one Stapleford workshop to seven franchises.

Seven franchises, a van centre, Motability and a busy used car operation, moving to a new platform without losing the search traffic the old site had built.

Sandicliffe began in 1948 as a small garage and workshop in Stapleford, servicing and repairing local cars. Today it is an award-winning motor group with showrooms in Nottingham, Leicester, Loughborough and Lincoln, selling new cars from seven manufacturers alongside a Ford Transit Centre, Motability, used cars and vans. The group wanted one site for all of it, with stock and enquiries flowing through Salesforce and a way for buyers to secure a car online.

Locations: Nottingham, Leicester, Loughborough, Lincoln, Stapleford
Brands: Ford
BYD
MG
Mazda
Changan
GWM
XPENG
Integrations: Salesforce
Keyloop
CodeWeavers
Stripe
CAP
EVA
AutoTrader
Calltracks
CallDrip
Trustpilot
Car and Driving
GTM

What we built

Cars, vans and Motability on one platform.

A single group site on Autonomy, with every franchise, location and department configured in the platform. Stock and leads run through Salesforce, and buyers can reserve, value their car or work out finance from the vehicle page.

Reserve it before someone else does.

Vehicle pages carry Reserve now for £100. Buyers leave a name and number, pay a deposit through Stripe that is fully refundable if they change their mind, and the reservation goes straight to Salesforce.

Refundable deposit that secures today's price
£500 deposit on commercial vehicles
CodeWeavers PCP and HP on the same page

Browse used cars on sandicliffe.co.uk

01Reserve sits right beside the price
02A name and number to start
03Finance worked out on the same page

A new platform, with the old addresses still working.

Model pages, service pages, blog posts and used car listings from the old site were each mapped to a new address with a permanent redirect, and the blog moved across with them, so old links and bookmarks still lead somewhere useful.

Model and service pages mapped one to one
Blog articles moved and redirected
Retired car listings sent to live stock

Live 301 redirects

~~Old URL: /2020-new-ford-kuga-tour~~, now: /ford/new/kuga
301
~~Old URL: /all-new-transit-connect-phev.html~~, now: /ford-transit-centre/new/ford-transit-connect
301
~~Old URL: /air-conditioning-service.html~~, now: /servicing
301
~~Old URL: /about-us/history.html~~, now: /about-us
301

How we delivered it

Old platform out. Autonomy in.

A full replatform, planned so the group's stock, leads and search traffic moved across together.

ConfigurationFranchises, locations, forms
DesignGroup and franchise homepages
Front endFranchise, model and offer pages
Feeds and CRMSalesforce stock and leads
IntegrationsCodeWeavers, Stripe, EVA
SEO migrationBlog moved, old URLs redirected
Livesandicliffe.co.uk launched

Since launch

The results.

+45%

Organic traffic

+61%

Online enquiries

+72%

Test-drive bookings

+35%

Finance applications

Sandicliffe: Client-reported, year on year, first twelve months after launch.

Reserve a car, browse the van centre and find Motability offers on the live site.

sandicliffe.co.uk

More work